Jeeeerusalem !!!

English post...

What a trip !!

Believe me, Jerusalem is worth waking up early !!! The guide - I went there with a 7-people tour - took me in the lobby at 7.20 this morning, picked a few customers in two additionnal hotels. We reached the holy city after a short hour of driving, on a road surrounded by palestinian villages and walls...

The city itself is divided into at least three main parts. The old city, the jewish part - the western part - and the palestinian - estern - part. The old city is surrounded by walls, built by the Turkish in the 16th century, and is - according to what I understood - 1 km square big. Whereever you look at in this city, you can find a religious building. Among them:

- the Al-qasa mosque whose visit is prohibited to non muslem people. If you just look at the old city from the hill that faces it, this is the first thing you notive. Its golden dome is so huge and impressive...
- the western wall, where Jewish people are used to pray.
- the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus is supposed to have been crucified and put in ground

We have been visiting the old city in the morning. Our guide took us from the western wall to the Golgotha through small pedestrian streets whose smell is ... kind of differents to what I am used to. Spices, bakeries, meat mixed together... We took time to visit what is called the stations of the cross.

Today is friday, so that we also could enjoy the call to prayer launched from the numerous minarets we saw. In the afternoon, we took the car back to visit some more parts of Jerusalem. We enjoyed some really nice points of view on the city - see picture above -, went to the border between Jerusalem and Nazareth, visited the garden where Jesus was arrested - yes yes, the one with the really old trees... yes yes the ones that are not 2000 y.o, but only 300-400 y.o :p

That was a good trip !!!